A new suicide machine offers users with a 3D printer the ability to kill themselves any time, anywhere within a pod that doubles as their coffin.
The machine, known as a Sarco Capsule, was developed in the Netherlands by Dr. Philip Nitschke, a well-known proponent of euthanasia known as “Dr. Death,” and engineer Alexander Bannink, according to Lifesite News. Nitschke said that the design for the machine, which allows users to kill themselves with the press of a button, will be made open-sourced and free, so that anyone with access to a 3D printer can download and assemble the instrument of their demise.
“Sarco does not use any restricted drugs, or require any special expertise such as the insertion of an intravenous needle,” Nitschke said, according to Lifesite. “Anyone who can pass the entry test, can enter the machine and legally end their life.”
People will gain access to the Sarco Capsule by answering an online mental questionnaire which will give them a four digit access code if they pass the questionnaire. A person can then lie in the capsule and press a button, causing liquid nitrogen to rapidly lower the oxygen level, suffocating them in moments. The capsule can then be detached and used as a coffin. The base of the machine can be reused when fitted with another coffin capsule. Nitschke said the machine brings the world closer to his goal of making quick suicide available to anyone.
The machine is only the latest in a series of devices pushed by Nitschke that offers people various methods of committing suicide. Nitschke released a suicide kit online, disguised as equipment for home brewing beer, that sold for roughly $340 and, like the Sarco Capsule, allowed users to kill themselves anywhere and anytime they wanted. He has sold it in the U.K. for three years, despite the fact that overt assisted suicide is illegal there.
Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, denounced the sale of that kit in the U.K., saying “Any do-it-yourself kit for assisting in a suicide would be a violation of the law and, therefore, liable to prosecution.”
Nitschke once operated as a general practitioner in Australia, but burned his medical certificate after he came under legal fire for not referring a suicidal patient to a psychiatrist. The patient killed himself, and Nitschke went on to establish Exit International, a euthanasia promotion campaign, in 1997. Nitschke said he would offer death to anyone who seeks it, “including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, the troubled teen,” according to Daily Mail.
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